


Reticence

by ash818



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-12
Updated: 2014-06-12
Packaged: 2018-02-04 10:47:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1776325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ash818/pseuds/ash818
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On their return from Lian Yu, Oliver crashes on Felicity's couch. It's not awkward, actually. It's not awkward at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reticence

The plane touches down in Starling at 11:43 pm, and Lyla is waiting for them on the stateside of customs.

Jetlagged as she is, Felicity manages a faint glow of enthusiasm when she hugs Lyla. “Dig told us the good news.”

“Congratulations,” Oliver says, with a genuine smile at Lyla’s pleasantly surprised expression.

“Thank you both,” Lyla says. Then her eyes slide sideways toward Dig, and a very different smile plays at the corners of her mouth. “Hey, Johnny.”

The rest of their greeting is completely nonverbal. Oliver and Felicity slip away to baggage claim to give them some space.

“I meant to ask,” Felicity says as Oliver lifts her suitcase off the carousel. “Where are you staying for now?”

“I’ve got a place. Lots of security. Extremely quiet.”

She looks at him over her glasses. “Extremely empty. You are not sleeping in our new lair.”

“It’s not a  _lair_ , and I don’t see why not.”

“Oliver. Sleep on my sofa. Just for tonight!” she says quickly when he opens his mouth to protest. “Tomorrow you can get yourself a cot or something.”

He holds her gaze a second longer than is quite comfortable. “Thank you.”

Dig and Lyla maintain carefully neutral expressions when they drop both Oliver and Felicity at her townhouse.

But there is no tension, really. They’re both too tired to feel awkward. Felicity throws a pillow and blanket on the living room sofa, and Oliver digs relatively clean sweats and a T-shirt out of his carry-on.

“Good night.”

“Good night.”

They’re both out like lights.

But at three in the morning, Oliver is suddenly and completely awake. Someone is in the kitchen. In the moment before his eyes adjust, he reaches for a weapon.

“Sorry,” Felicity whispers, standing barefoot in an oversized T-shirt and undersized shorts. “I was trying not to wake you.”

“I’m a light sleeper.” He puts the flechette down and flicks on the lamp. “You ok?”

She sighs. “Yeah. Fine.”

He inclines his head toward her, and in a different, deeper voice, he says, “Are you ok?”

She purses her lips – her dimples are more noticeable with the glasses off – and shrugs. “I can fall asleep, but I can’t stay there.”

“Nightmares?”

She nods.

“I have them too.” And he makes space on the sofa for her. After a brief pause, she arranges herself cross-legged in the far corner up against the armrest, and she doesn’t look at him. “Maybe if you talked about it?” he prompts.

She turns tired eyes on him. “For the past week I’ve been dreaming about the doors splintering when Slade’s men kicked them in. Or about the van rolling over. Or the sword.” One hand curls softly at the base of her throat. “I dreamed that we lost.”

“I had that one on the plane,” he murmurs. She’ll know what he means; she shook him free of it.

He can barely hear her when she says, “You know what scared me most?”

Oliver tries to tell her with his eyes that there’s no shame in it, there’s no need to whisper.

“I was a thing to them.”

Something twinges in his chest just hearing it.

“I was just an object that could be used to hurt you. Well, me and five hundred thousand other people,” she adds wryly. “I thought Slade might taunt me or threaten me or just rant about how awful you were and how he was  _totally_  justified and  _not at all_  overreacting.” She lays her head against the back of the sofa. “But he never spoke directly to me.”

“I’m glad he didn’t,” Oliver says. “That would have been worse.”

“Honestly, I’m glad too,” she sighs. “Even if he hadn’t been an invincible supersoldier, he would have been scary.” In her hands, a corner of blanket twists into a knot.  “He thinks people are things.”

Oliver resists the urge to still her clenching fingers. “I wish there had been any other way.”

“Hey.” She picks her head up. “Don’t start. You didn’t ask me to risk anything you weren’t risking yourself, ok? If you had for real tried to stash me away to twiddle my thumbs, I’d never have let you walk out those doors without me.”

“I know.” He hopes it’s pride she’s hearing, not resignation.

“I mean, I did end up doing some thumb-twiddling,” she admits. “It was about an hour before they came for me, which was way too much time to think, and every time I thought too hard about what Slade would do if he found the syringe on me, I got a little nauseated. Or I thought about bolting.”

“Odd things can come to mind at times like that.”

Her expression softens, and the wrinkled corner of blanket slips from her hands. “I actually started thinking about your birthday, the night after the quake. First, how good the wine was. Thanks again.”

“You did earn it.”

“But then I thought about what you said. About having a responsibility to this city. And if half a million people died because I wasn’t brave enough, I don’t think I could live with that.”

“Felicity,” he says, a little thrown, because she really should know this by now, “you’re the bravest person I know.”

The smile she gives him is a little watery. “Could you see me shaking right before I stuck him? Because that happened. But you were making Dirty Harry speeches and smiling mysteriously. You didn’t look even a little bit scared.”

“He had a sword to your neck. I was terrified.”

Her mouth opens. Closes again. “You know what? You are–” She shakes her head, revises. Or maybe she’s counting down from three. “Most of the time,” she starts again, slowly, “you are a cagey, secretive, circumspect, closemouthed—“

“Reticent.”

“—undersharer. But sometimes you just  _say_  stuff, like it’s no big thing. And I don’t know what you want me to do with it.”

“Nothing,” he sighs. “I don’t expect you to do anything. Just… believe me. That’s all.”

The way her eyelashes flutter when she searches his face will forever remind him of that moment in the mansion, right before she said yes. What she says now is, “I believe you,” which is almost as bad. Then she reaches for his hand and squeezes tight.

“Let’s just never do anything like that ever again,” Oliver says.

She smiles. “Maybe we should. I seem to make excellent bait.”

“You weren’t bait. You were… undercover behind enemy lines.”

She laughs at that. “Undercover as your helpless damsel.”

“Which you will never do again.”

She leans into the cushions and smiles sleepily. “You’re bossy. And probably wrong.”

“I am wrong with alarming frequency,” he admits.

Her eyes close, and she tucks her free hand under her chin. “Good thing you have me.”

He waits for her breathing to slow down and even out. One hand drifts slowly into her lap. The hand in his finally relaxes. He hits the lights.

“Good thing.”


End file.
